


Halfway Up the Stairs

by gardnerhill



Category: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e06 Flight Risk, Gen, Racism, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-11
Updated: 2012-11-11
Packaged: 2017-11-18 10:14:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/559875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An epilogue for the episode "Flight Risk."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halfway Up the Stairs

Joan stopped. Anger roiled like a pillar of fire inside her, and then ice. She turned around and faced Sherlock again. She had to know, so she could pull back now if she had to.

"One more thing, Sherlock. About the actor you hired to play your father."

He looked up at her, a slight frown on his face to cover the stone expression she'd evoked with the mention of the name Irene. "Yes, what of him?"

The next sentence determined their relationship from now on; she let the pillar of ice inside her sculpt her words.

"Were the sexual comments your idea or his?"

His eyes widened fractionally; his lips parted. Horror – and not the horror of being caught out. 

"Good," she said, before he could speak. "Because if they had been your idea we would remain sobriety partners, but any friendship we could have had would be over. That, on top of your 'sapphic dalliance' comments last week about my relationship with a _colleague_ , would have been the end."

Sherlock closed his mouth. The horrified look in his eyes remained. "I gave him certain subjects upon which to touch, and told him to … improvise the rest. I made absolutely no mention of referring to sexual matters at all."

Watson nodded. "Then I suggest in the future if you use him again, you specifically mention that he is to avoid any sexually-related comments. Somehow I doubt you'd need to emphasize this if you were sending him to intercept a man."

He nodded also. "Watson, I am so sorry that my carelessness exposed you to misogynistic comments. I will speak to him about this."

Genuine contriteness, and an actual apology – not an "I'm sorry if you were offended" (or worse, "I'm sorry you didn't have a better sense of humor about it") faux-apology. 

But Watson remained where she was, wary. He didn't know – for all his perception, Sherlock Holmes still lived in the white-male bubble that kept them from seeing so much around them. "When you speak to him, please tell him that he is not to make any racially-based comments either."

Horror again, redoubled. "He didn't –"

"No," she said emphatically. "He did not. But after the sexual comments? I waited to hear them. I expected them next, because he was a creepy old white man who'd already made inappropriate remarks about my sexuality. And I sat there with my stomach in a knot, once I realized you'd done this – that you'd set me up to be sexually harassed – and waiting to see if your prank would cross the racial line too. 

"Sherlock, it's bad enough to be an expert in your chosen field and still be reduced to your sexuality because you're a woman, without the extra fetishization so many white men do with Asian women. Can you even understand what it's like, to be the goddamn _valedictorian_ of your medical class, and still knowing that to too many white males – your fellow students, co-workers, patients, strangers, sobriety partners – all they see when they look at you is a Chinese sex doll fantasy?"

She stopped, breathing hard through her nose. The pillar of ice was still there after all, but wreathed in righteous fire. 

He met her eyes; both shared the same look of hurt and betrayal, awareness of an open wound. "I don't," he said softly. "I never. Not from the first, Watson."

"I know," she said. She did. His remarks last week had been deliberate projection of a particular persona to Carrie; the onus of this incident fell mainly on the old actor's head. "A third time makes it a pattern, Sherlock."

"That third time will never come."

"See that it doesn't." 

She turned to continue her walk up the stairs – and exhaled hard in bitter amusement that during her exchange with Sherlock she actually had taken two steps back.


End file.
